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Have I been accused of spam?


bctm

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I just replied to an email thanking someone for sending me some information, and the email got returned to me with this in it:

SMTP error from remote mailer after MAIL FROM:<trisha[at]fronterix.com>:

host smtp1.uhsinc.com [12.3.34.82]: 550 5.7.1 Mail from 207.217.121.183 refused - see http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml

So I clicked on that last link and it led to this site. What does this mean? Have I been accused of spam? I get lots of spam sent to that address, but I haven't sent anything that would be spam. Do I need to do something about this?

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It's not you personally that's being accused...it's the Earthlink server through which your mail is passing that's on SpamCop's Blacklist. There are a number of Earthlink servers that have recently been blacklisted due to an increased amount of spam that they're transmitting/relaying to "spamtrap" addresses and to SpamCop users.

The things you can do are to complain loudly to Earthlink that they need to clean up their act, and for now, use a Yahoo, Hotmail, or other free address to contact the person you were trying to contact at Universal Health Services (uhsinc.com), because until Earthlink cleans things up, you won't be able to reliably send mail to people whose service providers are using the SpamCop Blacklist to reject mail from known spam sources.

DT

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The FAQ and/or the "Why am I Blocked?" Pinned item were developed to include the explaination of what David took the time to go over. The SpamCopDNSbl that was apparently used by the e-mail recipient's ISP is a list of IP addresses of currently spamming spew sources.

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Thanks DavidT! That really sucks about the Earthlink thing. The thing is, I most always use my own domain email addresses, but earthlink won't let me use my own SMTP servers to send mail, I have to use theirs which I guess is what is causing me the problem. Luckily, I'm going to be getting a cable connection soon!

Wazoo, in general I do understand and respect FAQ and pinned posts on message boards. However, in this case, I did glance at those and was overwhelmed and confused by all the information in them. Plus, I didn't come to this site by choice really, I felt I was being forced to (with the link in the email) because of being accused of doing something bad that I knew I didn't do.

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earthlink won't let me use my own SMTP servers to send mail, I have to use theirs which I guess is what is causing me the problem.

As I mentioned, if you use an alternative webmail account, such as one at Yahoo, you probably won't be blocked as often.

Luckily, I'm going to be getting a cable connection soon!

That might not solve the problem....most cable providers also force you to use their SMTP, and some of them get on the blocklists also. I use Cox, and one of the mail servers was blocked a few weeks ago.

DT

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I agree with bctm in his posting. I have, in the last few days, sent e-mail messages only to have them bounce back to me with a message about my host being listed in bl.spamcop.net. Like bctm, I've read the FAQ "sticky" and it's all a bit overwhelming. And, like bctm, I didn't really ask to come here.

I have not sent spam. We have our own domain, but I believe we have what is called a shared hosting account.

The header on the latest message that bounced back to me:

From: Mail Delivery System [mailto:Mailer-Daemon[at]mis.your-dns-servers.net]

Sent: 15 October 2004 11:45

To: craig[at]hmdp.com

Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

mike[at]alberyfoundation.org

SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:<mike[at]alberyfoundation.org>:

host m1.dnsix.com [63.251.171.166]: 550 host is listed in bl.spamcop.net

I checked the IP address (63.251.171.166) on your system, and it said it wasn't blocked.

When this happened a few days ago, I sent a grumpy e-mail message to the folks who host our website. They checked your website at that time, and said that the domain wasn't blocked.

So it seems to be blocked when I send messages, then unblocked when I check, and so it goes. Today's message was to a different recipient from the message a few days ago.

Can someone please let me know what's going on? I use a relatively small hosting company, and he assures me that all of his customers are carefully vetted. But I believe he is a wholesaler and that he purchases hosting from a larger company.

How can I avoid problems caused by other individuals or companies that are completely unrelated to me, except that they may also share our hosting company? If I get my own IP address (hosting company says this is quite inexpensive) will that stop this problem?

Like everyone, I get lots of spam each day, some of it laden with viruses. I use Cloudmark (SpamNet) to filter it, and I find this works better than other spam filtering solutions I've used in the past. But now we seem to not only have a problem with incoming spam, but we're encountering difficulties sending our own legitimate messages.

Can someone help me figure out, please, what's going on, and what I can do to hopefully stop it?

Thanks,

Craig

www.luciesfarm.com

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Just to point to a specific FAQ entry http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/297.html .. if you scroll down to the "How it works" .. you'll see a very complicated bit of mathematics involved. Actual listing time runs from one-half hour to 48 hours. So yes, it is possible for an IP to be listed now but not listed when you check. The evidence page has not been real-time for ages (spammers were using it for their own nasty purposes) so it's also possuble to get rejections but find that its not listed "yet" .....

On the other hand, it is also possible that the receiving system is rejecting your e-mail for some other reason, but is using the wrong "error message". That ISP would have to be contacted, but you example includes an address I wouldn't want to touch ... Mailer-Daemon[at]mis.your-dns-servers.net .. I'll pretend you made this one up..???

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UPDATE: the blocking in the case of "alberyfoundation.org" was due to problems with their own vanity domain hosting, and not due to the IPs involved in sending the email. See the clarification I've posted here:

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=18836

Here's my original response...before I figured out the real problem:

So yes, it is possible for an IP to be listed now but not listed when you check.

That IP has been listed, but the lookup shows that "ISP believes this issue is resolved." However, if you go to "groups.google.com" and enter the IP address (be sure to select "Sorted by date" after doing so), you'll see that a significant amount of spam comes from that source.

Mailer-Daemon[at]mis.your-dns-servers.net .. I'll pretend you made this one up..???

No...it's real. Go to:

http://dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?do...=luciesfarm.com

and take a look at the results. You'll see several mentions of "your-dns-servers.net."

Here's some bad news....the IP you supplied seems to be part of the "Internap.com" space....they are a black-hat company, IIRC, and so your site isn't living in a "good neighborhood" as far as a reputation for harboring spammers goes.

Here's a recent exchange from the Usenet email abuse group regarding Internap:

> Fairly new at this, but does anyone know if Internap has a clue and if I

> should bother to continue larting them over non-stop netflip / metareward

> spam ? They are shown as the abuse contact, but four or five complaints so

> far, and it is still coming.  I'm wondering if I should just block anything

> from them.

Totally black hat. Avoid!  There are few worse American ISPs than

Internap. They have an abominable number of SBL listings - 37!

http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso?isp=internap.com

They're also hosting plenty of ROSKO spammers - a very bad thing.

They ignore complaints, and if they do eventually terminate the

spammer, it's likely because the spammer's contract has expired, or

they did not pay their bill, not because of AUP violations.

DT

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Hi,

Thanks for the quick and detailed response. I'm afraid a lot of it still is over my head, but I'm trying to understand it.

if you go to "groups.google.com" and enter the IP address

I went to groups.google.com but couldn't see where I should enter the IP address. I tried entering mis.your-dns-servers.net in the Google search box on that page, but it didn't come up with anything.

I didn't even know that Google groups existed. Which group should I select? Do I enter the IP address in a group, or somewhere else?

I have also never heard of Internap or IIRC. I deal with a company named ESoftPro. Who is Internap? How am I "connected" with them? What is an "ROSKO spammer" please?

I moved the hosting of several of our domains to ESoftPro in the past few months because of the excellent service I get from Eric at ESoftPro. The hosting is also much less expensive than what I was paying Microsoft bCentral previously.

How do I know, when moving hosting, if I'm going into a "black hat" world or not? Earlier in this string, I saw that Earthlink was a culprit, and DaveT said "they need to clean up their act." So if big companies are potential problems, and small companies, how do I steer clear of the "black hats" and hang out only with the "white hats?"

I hate spam as much as anyone, if not moreso. And I want to do absolutely nothing to encourage it, and everything possible to kill it. But in this case we seem to be remotely guilty by indirect association. It's a bit like having my application for a credit card declined because a neighbor I've never met, who happens to live a few houses down the street, has gone bankrupt. It's like the credit card company saying, "Well, you must live in a bad neighborhood."

Will obtaining my own IP address help, or is it still related to where the website is hosted? I don't have the skills to maintain my own server --- it seems we spend time trying to keep people away from our network computers, with firewalls, etc.

Thanks for your continued help and patience with me.

Craig Walsh

www.luciesfarm.com

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Upstream - see http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=14548 ... basically you "buy" bandwidth from someone that "buys" their bandwidth from somewhere else ....

ROKSO - again, Google is your friend

Google Groups came about when they took over Deja who took over .... anyway, the great repository of NNTP newsgroup data

It's like the credit card company saying, "Well, you must live in a bad neighborhood."

Funny in that I recall putting in a FAQ entry that corresponds with this comment.

White hat/Black hat/My own IP ---- reseach, research, research .... and as above, research the upstream .... Getting "your" IP address might solve one problem, but you may then find that this single IP is smack dab in the middle of a giant IP block allocation that has been SPEW'd .. and only a bit of ressearch will answer that question.

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I went to groups.google.com but couldn't see where I should enter the IP address.

You should have pasted your IP address into the Google search box on that page, which would then have brought up a list of hits "Sorted by relevance" at which point you'd need to click on "Sort by date" near the upper right hand corner, but I see that Merlyn has already provided a link to those results.

I have also never heard of Internap or IIRC.  I deal with a company named ESoftPro.  Who is Internap?  How am I "connected" with them?  What is an "ROSKO spammer" please?

Internap is the "upstream provider" of the IP address you gave us. That can be determined using the "Report spam" lookup form at SpamCop, or by a search at:

http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html

If you search on the IP address, you'll find that it's controlled by Dotster, but by Internap above them. This is a bit odd, because your website is actually hosted in IP space belonging to "theplanet.com" so I'm not sure why your email messages wouldn't be emanating from that same space (assuming they're generated from the website, as opposed to messages sent from your home or office PC).

IIRC = "if I remember correctly"

ROSKO (should be "ROKSO") = "register of known spam operations" found at:

http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/

I moved the hosting of several of our domains to ESoftPro in the past few months because of the excellent service I get from Eric at ESoftPro.  The hosting is also much less expensive than what I was paying Microsoft bCentral previously.

Moving away from Micro$loth was a good idea, but you often get what you pay for.

How do I know, when moving hosting, if I'm going into a "black hat" world or not?

That can be tricky, in that the hosting company is hosted by another, which might be hosted by another, etc., any of which might have less than exemplary spam histories. In this case, you can always search the "news.admin.net-abuse.email" group on Google Groups....here's a date-ordered link to a search on the hat color for Internap:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=internap...&sa=G&scoring=d

But in this case we seem to be remotely guilty by indirect association.  It's a bit like having my application for a credit card declined because a neighbor I've never met, who happens to live a few houses down the street, has gone bankrupt.  It's like the credit card company saying, "Well, you must live in a bad neighborhood."

This is an unfortunate result of the unscrupulous activities of spammers and their hosts, who are either complicit or clueless.

Will obtaining my own IP address help, or is it still related to where the website is hosted?

Having your website hosted at it's own IP address won't do any good if it's on a shared server and all the other hosted sites are sending mail out through a common server IP, which is unfortunately a common scenario. I'm in the process of helping some nonprofit orgs look for new hosting services where this is not the case, because much of the current spam blocking is done by the souce IP, so having your own, clean IP as the source of your messages is one of the best forms of protection. This will only apply to messaages sent directly from the website....not from messages sent by a domain owner/admin from their home PC, of course, where the actual connectivity provider usually forces the use of their own SMTP services.

DT

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Wow, Wazoo --- grumpy in Iowa or what? I'm sorry if I inadvertently used something you'd posted previously. I'm always a tad surprised when folks are prolific forum posters, but seem irritable. Perhaps I'm mistaken about your message: if so, my apologies.

This word of "upstream" and shared bandwith and IP addresses in groups, etc., is all unfamiliar to me. It's great that there's a forum where I can learn about this, and, in the process, hopefully become a more knowledgable consumer. Yes, I can Google everything --- been there, done that. But you can sometimes get too much information via Google, and have a hard time putting it all together. For example, I did do a Google search on IIRC and came up with all sorts of stuff that is completely unrelated to any of this.

Thanks, DaveT, for your helpful response. I've already looked at the Google link provided, and have e-mailed it off to ESoftPro to ask for their comments. The Google link made pretty unattractive reading, and I'll be interested to hear what they have to say.

It's intersting that you mentioned theplanet, because that's where I thought our domain was hosted. I believe I'm sending mail via their SMTP server, but your comments about sending mail from my home have confused me a bit.

To see what it all means, I sent an e-mail from the account that's having problems to another e-mail account I have in Switzerland (which I've replaced with ****). Here's the header on that message:

Return-Path: <craig[at]hmdp.com>

Delivered-To: ******_dot_ch[at]mail07.swiss-web.com

Received: from mis.your-dns-servers.net (NS1.YOUR-DNS-SERVERS.NET [69.93.240.134])

by mail07.swiss-web.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF22ACC20F

for <********.ch>; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 19:58:09 +0200 (CEST)

Received: from [81.168.115.231] (helo=CraigDell)

by mis.your-dns-servers.net with smtp (Exim 4.43)

id 1CIWVy-00054f-LU

for *******.ch; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 11:09:19 -0700

Reply-To: <craig[at]hmdp.com>

From: "Craig W. Walsh" <craig[at]hmdp.com>

To: <*******.ch>

Subject: test

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 19:09:18 +0100

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/mixed;

boundary="----=_NextPart_000_00C4_01C4B2EA.78D06070"

X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353

Thread-Index: AcSy4hZNxG1mVctfS3KoEICDYLVZ9g==

X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180

X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: 0000000031F4EEB07304F74AB9A6426154251F0C641BC200

X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report

X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - mis.your-dns-servers.net

X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - ****.ch

X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [47 12]

X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - hmdp.com

X-Source:

X-Source-Args:

X-Source-Dir:

Message-Id: <20041015175809.CF22ACC20F[at]mail07.swiss-web.com>

Status:

Is the culprit the folks who host my domain (hmdp.com) --- or the folks who provide our internet connection (Eclipse Internet)?

I have asked Eric why our domain is hosted (via ESoftPro) at theplanet, but why our e-mail originates from somewhere else.

Thanks for your assistance with this. I appreciate it.

Kind regards,

Craig

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I have asked Eric why our domain is hosted (via ESoftPro) at theplanet, but why our e-mail originates from somewhere else.

I'm getting confused....your initial post contained this error message:

host m1.dnsix.com [63.251.171.166]: 550 host is listed in bl.spamcop.net

That domain, "dnsix.com" belongs to a regstrar, "namesdirect.com" who also does business as "MyDomain.com" and other names. They do domain "pointing" in which they redirect traffic coming to a domain name to the actual location of the website. They also will handle incoming email in a similar manner. What I don't understand is why your blocked message was going "outbound" through those servers. The new "Swiss example" you posted did not travel through that path, so you don't seem to be giving us the proper information to help you.

We need to know more about the path travelled by the original blocked message that was sent to "alberyfoundation.org." Perhaps it had nothing at all to do with either "luciesfarm.com" or "hmdp.com"?

DT

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WAIT! I've just found something interesting.....the receiving domain of your orignal message, "alberyfoundation.org" is actually hosted at "Dotster.org" as a redirect (not full hosting). So...here's what probably happened....no matter where your mail came from, no matter the initial routing, it had to go through the "Dotster.org" servers on its way to the actual recipient at the "Albery Foundation" (those are simply vanity domains/addresses forwarded elsewhere). The error message was generated by the actual recipient's ISP, who is using the SpamCop DNSBL and it appears that the Dotster/NamesDirect IP (hosted on the Internap network) was in the BL, so that triggered the blockage.

So...you should tell your own domain host "nevermind" and find a way of alerting the folks at "alberyfoundation.org" that they've got a problem (or they *had* a problem).

BTW, the true website address of the Albery Foundation is:

http://old.globalideasbank.org/NAF/NAFindex.html

DT

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Wow, Wazoo --- grumpy in Iowa or what?  I'm sorry if I inadvertently used something you'd posted previously.  I'm always a tad surprised when folks are prolific forum posters, but seem irritable.  Perhaps I'm mistaken about your message:  if so, my apologies.

Trust me, you don't want to have an inkling of my current disposition. That aside, I don't even understand your thought process. You posed questions, I offered suggestions, links, pointers, answers. No, I didn't feel like doing your research for you.

If you'd looked at the FAQ, you'd have also found that the contribution about the credit reporting agency analogy was generated by yet another user, I simply added that data to the FAQ so that others would have that access point to see it.

The "prolific poster" scenario is explained by the apparent overlooking of the Moderator tag when you looked up my stats. I get to read all posts in here to try to make sure thay get handled, one way or the other. Now you can increment that post quantity by yet another count.

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This is OT, but....

I enjoyed visiting the virtual home of Lucies Farm, but I was horrified to learn that they've changed the diet of their animals from grass (which is what cows are supposed to eat by design) to grain (like the "corn-fed" beef of the American midwest). This is a horrendously bad idea, because it is extremely disruptive to the complex digestive system of the animals (they are ruminants with multiple stomachs, IIRC). To combat the ill effects of the improper diet, they must be pumped full of extra antibiotics and other chemicals (hormones), which goes into their milk and their meat, and eventually into the people that consume them. Why do you think that girls are "developing" much earlier, and that there are so many drug-resistant malevolent microbes making us sick? This sort of stupidity is one of the reasons.

Didn't you folks learn anything from "Mad Cow"?????

DT

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Thanks, DavidT, for letting me know how the message got to Mike, and explaining how the spam problem happened along the way. I'm glad to hear that our hosting company isn't the offending party, although Merlyn has indicated that

Way too much spam comes from theplanet.
Perhaps a function of their size?

Thanks, also, for your comments about our Scottish | Kobe beef (which, as you say, have nothing to do with spam --- meat or e-mail variety).

You'll be pleased to know that while we feed our cattle beer on a daily basis, as well as grain, they are not enclosed in any sort of "feed lot." They graze naturally in open fields, and have plenty of English grass to much as well. We've never needed antibiotics, and have never given them any growth hormones. We pride ourselves in raising them in the traditional Kobe fashion: they lead charmed lives, and repay us with delicious beef.

Staying OT for a moment (hope you'll indulge me), I'm reading a 1983 book called Beef in Japan. The author points out that the Japanese (at least in 1983) found the odor of green crop (pasture) fattened beef offensive. Well-marbled grain fattened beef cooks faster at a lower temperature than meat with less fat between and within the muscle bundles. The fat melts and cooks the protein fibrils in the muscle bundles without causing excessive amino acid break-down. Grass fattened beef with less inter- and intra-muscle bundle fat overheats in the boiling nabemono liquid. The sulphur-containing amino acids in the muscle protein begin to break down and a characteristic pungent (sulphurous) odour is given off.

Thank you all for your help with my problem today --- I appreciate the thorough responses, and the speed of response. Most kind of you all.

Craig

www.luciesfarm.com

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Trust me, you don't want to have an inkling of my current disposition.  That aside, I don't even understand your thought process.  You posed questions, I offered suggestions, links, pointers, answers.  No, I didn't feel like doing your research for you.

If you'd looked at the FAQ, you'd have also found that the contribution about the credit reporting agency analogy was generated by yet another user, I simply added that data to the FAQ so that others would have that access point to see it.

The "prolific poster" scenario is explained by the apparent overlooking of the Moderator tag when you looked up my stats.  I get to read all posts in here to try to make sure thay get handled, one way or the other.  Now you can increment that post quantity by yet another count.

18837[/snapback]

You are just another reason people don't post for help on this forum. I could care less about your disposition. Your probably just another pencil necked geek behind a computer screen. People who are new and come to these forums get treated like morons because of "members" such as yourself. Your FAQ's ARE HARD TO READ AND FIND THE SPECIFIC INFO YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. Thats all he was saying. Your response was immature and juvanile at best. The fact that your respond to people in such an ineffecient way suggests that maybe you should just move on and give it a rest. All the personal stuff aside....people come here for help, not a lecture on how they should have gone to the FAQ first. If it bothers you that much just stay out of the forums. Its really very simple. Not rocket science.

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If it bothers you that much just stay out of the forums.

Do you understand the role of a moderator? Wazoo was asked by spamcop staff to stay involved here because of how many people he has helped and he has the time to devote to the process. Personally, I believe he usually goes above and beyond those duties, personally contacting ISP's on behalf of some questioners.

Yes, we all get frustrated with the status of the current FAQ, but for different reasons. Before the FAQ was posted in this forum, the one in the spamcop site was VERY out of date and VERY incomplete. The people who are experienced using the system have no way to modify the "official" FAQ. There have been many requests for updates that have just started to be implemented.

Part of the problem is the wide range of services offered by spamcop. The FAQ attempts to cover all of the reasons people would come to spamcop. We have people trying to implement the spamcop BL for their servers. We have administrators who are trying to understand how they got listed on the bl and how to be removed so they can send messages to those who have implemented the BL. We have normal email users who have received inadequate error messages, not controlled by spamcop, which direct them to spamcop rather than to their ISP who can address the problem. We have users of the parsing and reporting service experiencing problems or having questions about choices spamcop made. We have users of the spamcop email service with their various questions. Then we have some people who come here to ask generic questons about spam fighting. All of these people are welcome here and we try to help all of them to the best of our ability in this user to user format.

If you can devise a better format for the FAQ, please make your suggestion in the appropriate thread in the lounge. Don't just launch your "the FAQ stinks", help fix it. THe current format is the work of many people here, but new viewpoints are always welcome, especially from people not involved with spamcop. Those of us who know how spamcop works will tend to read the answers differently than those who do not know the process.

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I couldn't agree more with what Steven just said. We are all trying to be helpful here to the best of our abilities and as a community of SpamCop users. What is frustrating is people that come here to vent frustrations without the least effort to understand how this forum works, why and how they ended up on a block list and the like. They mostly come to post a request for removal and leave without ever reading the reply everyone has volunteered in an effort to be helpful.

If Wazoo is rough around the edges sometimes it's because, as many of us, he is exasperated by the questions repeated ad nauseum simply because the OP in questions is not really looking for an answer. Otherwise they would attempt to navigate the helpful features of this forum and only then ask their questions.

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You are just another reason people don't post for help on this forum.

Interesting that this remark makes the assumption that people read before posting. Reality suggests that this mode is defintely not universal.

I could care less about your disposition.

Whatever .. that was a remark in response to another poster's characterzations.

Your probably just another pencil necked geek behind a computer screen.

Not sure of your source of information, but this is something I've not been called before. (Thanks for your personal opinion, I might add.) Lemme see here .. in the last week I've replaced a timing chain on a neighbor's Chrysler, found the info and stepped another neighbor through using a paperclip to pull the condition codes from one of his cars and found the vacuum leak to solve that problem, helped put up a garage across the street, helped tear down a shed in a lot behind me, ran 37 computers through "here" for things from blown power supplies to one I swear had every virus, trojan, and porn dialer ever written, helped a client set up and tear down her exhibit at a trade show, dealt with property issues of an uncle that passed away two weeks ago, dealt with a step-daughter not seen for over 17 years who blew into town and found out that I wasn't actually dead, replaced the caulking around all of my exterior windows, repaired and made ready for storage four lawnmowers (still have one to deliver sitting out in the van) .... yep, pencil-necked geek comes right to mind. And yes, you're right, I love spending my free time doing things like coming in here and responding to crap like this. Makes my day complete.

People who are new and come to these forums get treated like morons because of "members" such as yourself.

"treated like morons" how? Answers can't be developed if data is not provided. Asking for the missing information is not the same as calling the poster a moron.

Your FAQ's ARE HARD TO READ AND FIND THE SPECIFIC INFO YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.  Thats all he was saying.

"My" FAQ? Though I'll take credit for piecing it together, I'm hardly the "originator" ... the existing www.spamcop.net FAQ was pullrd onto a single page, and the additional pointers / links are to other discussions and posts within this Forum structure. I believe the FAQ even starts with a paragraph to explain what was happening when I started it. If you go beyond that first post, you'll note that it was developed with help from others. Is there some reason you can't go beyond the pettiness of your remarks and get a bit specific? Do you have some suggestions? Have you looked at a Topic in the Lounge dealing with "Forum Configuration" changes? (Or is this where I'm now calling you a moron?)

Your response was immature and juvanile at best.  The fact that your respond to people in such an ineffecient way suggests that maybe you should just move on and give it a rest.  All the personal stuff aside....people come here for help, not a lecture on how they should have gone to the FAQ first.  If it bothers you that much just stay out of the forums.  Its really very simple.  Not rocket science.

I keep thinking the same thing, actually ... Putting up a FAQ, putting up the definition for the acronym FAQ, adding in a "read before posting" comment, even leaving one of the prime queries as a duplicated standing-on-its-own Pinned entry, and yet there are the continuous streams of the "why am I blocked" postings ... just one fine example ... (noting that this particular FAQ item was not written by me, Miss Betsy is another user that took the time and made the effort to put it together) ...

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